Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

A s Sunshine traveled to Willow Manor in the coach Mr. Wallace so generously provided, she realized it was more than transportation she had sought yesterday. It was permission, a blessing, a validation that to live was not the same as forgetting. The two were unrelated.

Oh, she had made a memory, all right. One she couldn't shake. Mr. Wallace, along with the Wicked Widows' League, successfully convinced her that she owed it to herself to find out if there was more. And since the blackguard, Lord Davies, had not given her notice of his impromptu visit, she decided it was apropos for her to repay him in kind.

She found little relief when she discovered he was not at home. But his aunts were well in attendance, and there were never two more welcoming souls that she could ever remember.

"Thank you," Sunshine said again as the aunt named Nora gave her a cup of brimming hot tea, and the one called Vada laid a napkin in her lap with two biscuits. The tea was a difficult matter alone until she took a scalding sip so she could more easily place it without spilling it on the sofa table in front of her. When she did, the biscuits shifted on her lap, and she had to raise her knees to keep them from rolling to the floor. The smile she gave the two older women was as unbalanced as the tea and biscuits had been in her company.

They both sat opposite the table in matching, pink-striped chintz chairs. Pink seemed to be a theme throughout the house, and she remembered that her guest room had also been pink. It was highly apparent that the women ran the household.

"Lord Davies isn't quite here."

"And neither is Phineas," the one called Nora announced. The relationship between the ladies was as if they were, each one, half of a complete set.

"Which brings us to a question," Vada said. "What name did our nephew give you?"

"It might be better if you asked him that, I'm afraid."

"But we can't," Nora said. "He isn't here. I believe he went to check on his ship."

Vada shook her head with a sigh. "His shipping, Nora. Not his ship. His ship is planted somewhere beyond the ice storm."

Nora nodded her agreement as if Vada's comment was a repeat of what she'd just said. "Exactly."

Sunshine wanted to laugh. She could have listened to these two all day for the entertainment alone, but if the viscount was not in attendance, then she would need to turn back before the sun went down. "As I told you, I came to retrieve something from your nephew, but if he is not here, I should be on my way."

"What did you have in mind?" The question was almost curt, and it came from the open doorway from the man of the hour.

Sunshine turned in her seat to see Phineas standing with his arms crossed. He wore brown breeches with cuffed boots and a white linen shirt held in by a gold embroidered turquoise waistcoat, along with a pirate's smile that neither conveyed joy nor surrender. He was dashingly veiled by attitude alone, and she supposed that was fair under the circumstances.

Vada walked forward and took Phineas's arm, guiding him into the room, patting his hand, as if he needed help. "We thought you would be away longer checking on your business prospects."

"Among other things," he said, directing the full extent of his gaze at Sunshine.

Her heart did a little flip, but except for the day he came to see her, she had not seen a shadow of him anywhere.

"If you'd excuse me, Aunt Vada and Aunt Nora, I need a word with your houseguest."

"I'm not a houseguest."

"You are now. There's a bluster of a storm coming in."

"We can't leave you with an unchaperoned young woman," Aunt Vada said.

"Yes, you can," he said, his gaze still locked with Sunshine's.

The woman looked to Sunshine, but she wasn't sure what to do. If she agreed with Phineas, she might be deemed fast and look a harlot. Nora saved her from it all.

"She's as lovely as your mother, Phineas. Our input is not needed here, Vada. Let's leave the children alone." She whispered the last part like a matchmaking conspiracy, as if they had planned his arrival.

"I guess I look as innocent as your mother and not likely to fall victim to a handsome pirate rogue."

He threw out a hard chuckle. "One could only imagine. I don't remember her, but my aunts like to regale me with stories."

* * *

Phineas didn't know whether he should be pleasantly surprised by Sunshine's unexpected visit or if he should be on guard. She looked beautifully innocent and refreshingly dressed in a copper-colored traveling suit. If it were possible, he was more confused now than he'd been on Christmas morning, waking to an empty bed.

He regarded her with a gaze that swept her face and stopped at her shoulders. "Should I assume to know what you came for?" If the woman believed him to be less surly than the last time they were together—in her foyer—she was sorely mistaken. Not that he wasn't glad to see her despite his current mood. Mostly, he was surprised.

"I believe assumptions are generally unreliable."

"And dangerous," he said under his breath. "Do you mind?" He gestured toward one of the chairs his aunts had vacated.

She shook her head. "Why do you always ask for common permission?"

"Are you serious? Or daft?"

"It just seems odd. I'm sitting. It's not as if we don't know each other. So why always the formality?"

He glanced her way, considering himself respectably civil. "What's odd is that I pursued to know you better. And you pursued the accusation that I shouldn't know you at all. So, I'm to shed what little gentlemanly traits I've hung on to because it's now convenient for you to suggest we know each other well enough to ignore good manners?" And there went the civil part.

Her eyebrows shot up as she shifted in her seat until her body was at an angle to him. She clutched her skirt with one hand, so he at least knew he had hit some mark. "Good manners?" She frosted him with a disdainful look.

His answer was abrupt. "Are you suggesting I have no manners? Really?" He paused, nostrils flaring. "I did not coerce you to show up at my coach. I did not coerce you to follow me to my room."

That remark pained her. He could see it in her eyes, the way she lowered them as if she were ashamed. He regretted the words immediately. Civil, indeed. He was acting like a child but couldn't seem to stop the unbridled idiocy.

"You're right, Lord Davies. I don't know you, and I'm not sure I'd like to."

"Good Lord. Can we at least agree on Phineas and Sunshine? Otherwise, this argument will be wasted on extra words that may take all night." He was as inconsistent as the storms this winter.

"I apparently have the time. Do you?" She was in high cheek today.

He bit the inside curve of his mouth and simply stared at her.

She took a fortifying breath. "On one condition. I want my feather back. That's what I came for."

He propped an elbow on the arm of the chair and rubbed his eyebrow. As angry and hurt as he was after the information he'd procured in the last two days, he could not give up the damn feather. At least not until he heard the truth from her own mouth.

A mouth he had kissed and enjoyed thoroughly.

A mouth her husband had kissed, which was difficult enough for him to think about. Even under understandable circumstances, it was clear his heart was jealous of a ghost.

But worst of all, it was a mouth that had been kissed by at least one other man. He couldn't be sure how many there had been, and he couldn't shake the nauseous anger he had now for a benefactor twice her age. Why should it surprise him when he'd wondered that night whether his aunts had invited a courtesan? Except in his heart, he couldn't imagine the woman seated across from him engaging in such a scheme.

His need to know intensified, clashing with the internal inability to remain civil. He'd hit the boiling point of a stormy sea. "So, is it that you're used to ill-mannered treatment? Is this… is it," he practically stuttered. "Is it normal for you to expect less from a man?"

To her credit, she looked more confused than appalled at his outburst, which even to his own ears was uncalled for.

"Did you study buffoonery as a trade, or is it something inherent in the title? How could I have missed that during our one night together? You act as if I owe you something. For what I cannot imagine. But I will have that feather now, if you don't mind, because I do plan on leaving, rain or shine."

"You won't."

"Do you know what the best part of being me is?"

Oh, she was good at this game. He wanted to answer with something crass but couldn't bring himself to do it. He gave a lazy blink.

"I get to make the choices. I get to be whomever I wish, whenever I wish. And right now, I wish to be a person taking my leave. But—and I would listen clearly were I you—I will not be leaving without the damn feather." She folded her arms, giving her shoulders a little shake, straightening her spine, and setting the world right by making a point to use language only men used in public.

"Lovely. Let's play this game, shall we? You want the feather, and I want an answer."

Her arms fell. "To what? Am I supposed to guess why you walked in here with an attitude? I am not one of your crew if, in fact, you truly are a ship's captain. I'm not certain what to believe anymore. My instincts have been buried by five years of grief."

That was a dig. He couldn't win against grief or the way she wielded the edge of guilt like a dueling swordsman. But he couldn't go on without answers either because, despite the truth, he still wanted to know her. He still liked her. He gave a relenting sigh. "You're good at this. When was the last time you had an argument this heated?"

"Never," she said far too quickly for it not to be true.

The inward eye roll was for himself because, again, here he was comparing himself to a ghost of a perfect man. "Never?"

"You think me a shrew? Perhaps you're the only one who could bring that out in me. That sounds more like a flaw in your fa?ade than mine."

"Indeed." She was right, of course. He bit the pad of his thumb, arguing with himself and barely able to maintain his seat.

"Well? Are you going to tell me what I'm answering for? And if you say it was because I didn't tell you about Richard?—"

"No," he shouted, sitting forward, interrupting her probably for the last time. "I'm not concerned with your husband. I want to know who Arthur Wallace is to you. That man is still alive. He was your benefactor long before I met you."

She looked truly affronted. Indignantly furious and also near to tears. Were they angry tears or tears of pain? She rubbed her lips together, her nostrils flaring with an angry sigh. "Are you offering to pay more? I'd be careful with your answer. Arthur's a wealthy man and pays me far more than I ever ask."

"So, he is your benefactor?"

"Is this your affair or mine, Lord Davies?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought it was mine." Before he could say something equally awful, she interrupted him.

"You don't deserve an answer for that remark." Her voice thickened, and she swallowed more than anger. He had hurt her. "But I'll answer you anyway, not for myself but for him ."

His body relaxed. He was already sorry. So very sorry.

"I don't care what people say about me, but he does, so let me be the first to share the truth with you."

"That's all I ever wanted." His calm response was too late.

"No, it isn't. You wanted one night with no ties. And the truth is, so did I. So, I'll answer your question, but then you'll tell me why on earth you came to find me."

He could only nod.

Her chest shuddered with a calming breath. Her shoulders fell with her final answer. "He is not my benefactor. At least not in the way you're thinking. I am not a courtesan, or mistress, or paramour. I am the widow of his son's best friend."

His gaze skated over her with care. "Richard's friend."

"Yes."

He could see there was more, and she was ready to give it; of that much, he was sure.

"Phineas?" Vada barged in without a knock or a warning. The two lovely birds were not unknown for their eavesdropping shenanigans. "There's a dog."

He stood out of courtesy but had no intention of following their trail of obviously deceitful breadcrumbs.

"And it's rabid," came Aunt Nora's high-pitched response, her head peeking from around Vada.

"Call the steward."

"He's detained," Vada said.

"By the cook," Nora put in.

Phineas shook his head. He'd laugh if he weren't in the middle of the most important conversation of his life. The conversation that choked his heart, causing a pain of his own making.

"He is growling." Vada obviously thought he needed more pressing.

He couldn't resist answering, "Who? The steward or the cook?"

He turned to excuse himself and was arrested by the sly smile Sunshine quickly buried behind a pulled brow. It gave him hope, and he realized his aunts had done him a kindness. "If you'll excuse me, Mrs. Price."

She nodded, a solemn gleam in her eye.

"Don't leave."

"Not without the feather." Her mouth twitched in a half smile. It was the best thing he'd seen all day.